Should We Stay or Should We Go...

Okay before you start wondering if we have called off the move- the answer is NO!  The move is still on. 

I came back to Denver this past Friday and as usual I'm on the computer checking out things for us to do on the weekends.  And lo and behold I ran across a link to "The Glenn Miller Swingfest in Ft. Morgan, Colorado featuring the World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra".  You may not know that this but Mark absolutely loves music from the 40's.  His Grandmother Lottie always had music playing on her record player when he would visit her and so this kind of music is near and dear to his heart.  

The website said that the concert would be held at Bath Farms and we didn't know if this was an indoor or outdoor event, so this time we decided that we were going to be prepared for any kind of weather.

We packed up blankets, sweatshirts, down jackets and stowed them in our handy-dandy backpack and  we took off for the 90 minute drive to Ft. Morgan to go to the festival. 

We left Denver at 2-ish with plans to go to the fort and to look around the town before we got a bite to eat and head out to the concert.  Once we got there we went to the town square where we were informed that there was no fort left but we were welcome to go to the museum to see what it used to look like. There is actually a nice little museum there that showed the history and heritage of Ft. Morgan and of the namesake of the Glenn Miller Swingfest. (Glenn Miller graduated from high school in Ft. Morgan) After touring the museum we decided to drive out the venue to make sure we knew where we were going since the flyers posted all over town warned everyone to NOT USE YOUR GPS to reach the location.   

The instructions said (I kid you not) "go down past the John Deere dealership on 34, turn right at the sign that says Road 21 and go to road Q.  Then turn left on Q and go to the Bath's farm".  Did I mention that this is farm country?  We actually found the farm with these instructions and much to our surprise there was an actual building where the concert/dance was going to be held so all of our preparations were for naught.  Oh well at least we tried…

Bath's farm

Okay so this is where the "should we stay or should we go" comes into play.  See, our Texas baseball team made it to the semi-finals in the College World Series and they were scheduled to play on Saturday afternoon about 2 pm which meant that we could watch the game in Denver and then head over to Ft. Morgan after it was over.  But they had a weather delay on Friday night and which postponed the game until 6pm on Saturday so we had to decide whether to miss the concert or miss the game.  What to do, what to do?  

My problem solving hubby suggested that we go to Ft. Morgan early, go to a restaurant for dinner and watch 2 hours of the game and then head out to the concert.  Sounds reasonable, right?  Ya we thought so too but as the game went along, we soon realized that the game was going to be a nail-biter and that it was going to probably going to come down to the last pitch in the last inning.  And as it turned out we were right.  

So there we sat at Cables Pub and Grill in downtown Ft. Morgan watching the game and trying to decide whether to finish watching the game and be late to the concert or go to the concert and miss the end of the game.  

Cables Pub and Grill

I hope those of you reading this know what the outcome of the decision was. Uh-huh, we decided to stay and watch the game.  

The game went into extra innings and it didn't get over until almost 10:30 pm.  

Yup, we drove all the way to Ft. Morgan to sit in a pub to watch the Horn's play their final game of the series.  

And we didn't go to the concert…

Alice and Yanni

I didn't get around to posting anything after I got back from Denver last week…and here I am back in Denver again this week so I suppose I ought to get to it. 

One of the things that I have noticed about the area that we live in right now (Centennial) is that everywhere you turn there are small parks and walking trails tucked into every space possible.  I was out walking the other day and found this little park that is located right next to Fiddler's Green. The whole park has life-sized bronzes of characters from Alice in Wonderland that follow the story line from one end of the trail out to the other side.  

Our apartment is located across from the Tech Center and most of the corporate buildings around here have some sort of statuary or bronzes on their grounds.  

On Sunday, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see the IMAX movie D-Day of Normandy which was really, really good.  Of course when we got there, parking was next to nonexistent except for the millions of spaces that were reserved for hybrid vehicles.  Did we take my Prius to the museum? Um…no.  We were in Mark's truck.  So note to ourselves: from now on we are taking my Prius anytime that we do anything cultural or in the downtown area.

View from the museum grounds to downtown Denver

On Thursday the 12th, Mark and I celebrated my birthday.  He told me to pick anyplace that I wanted go to and Greek food sounded pretty yummy so I Googled "Best Greek food in Denver" and found Yanni's.  It's located less than a mile away from us and the reviews were pretty good overall.  In fact, Yanni's was voted "Top Ethnic Restaurant" by Bon Appetit magazine and "Best of Denver" by Westword, The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. We figured- why not give it a shot and boy were we happy we went. The service was very good and the meal was outstanding!  Mark had the Kokinisto (a braised lamb shank that was large enough that we could have eaten on it for a week)  and I had lamb Souvlaki (kabob) which was so tender you could have cut it with a spoon.  They also brought by complimentary Ouzo for us during our meal….Opa!  We will definitely be going back for another meal or two. 

So About Last Night

Okay to be completely honest here, I have a confession to make.  Mark and I are 100% Texan to the bone. And this may lead to our early demise…

So last night we went to the outdoor concert in Centennial.  There were two local bands and an Eagles Tribute Band that was headlining the show and Mark and I figured it would be a nice place to spend a Saturday evening. The weather was a balmy 79 degrees when we got there about 6:30pm.  We had our collapsible chairs out, our food purchased from the food trucks, our beverages of choice in hand.  

And the concert started.  

And then the wind started.  

And then the temperature dropped exactly 27 degrees in about 30 minutes. 

And when we left the house we were patting ourselves on our backs that we had remembered to take light jackets with us "just in case" because "it gets cool in Denver in the summer".  We were so smug as we set up our lawn chairs and had our jackets handy.  

And did we notice that nearly everyone else who was walking into the amphitheater was carrying blankets and heavy jackets?  Did we take notice that there were even a few souls who had brought portable wind barriers?  Did we see the people directly in front of us carry in a duffle bag the size of a VW beetle full of cold weather gear?

Um…

So we sat in the 52 degree wind for the remaining part of the concert trying not to shiver so badly so as not to bother the Natives; that were probably giggling behind our backs, wrapped in their Gore Tex blankets and wearing their North Face coats and drinking their hot chocolate that they had brought from home in their industrial sized thermos jugs. 

Smug ass Natives. 

Slowly Making My Way To Colorado

Now that we Delaney's graduation over it's time for me to start making the final move to Denver.  As you know, we are in an apartment in Centennial until our home is finished, which is tentatively set for the end of September/early October.  This means that most of the things we have in our home in Odessa will be packed and stored until we make our final move once the house is finished.  This last week I took a load of things that we will need to have in the apartment that I no longer need in Odessa- crock pot, most of the canned foods in the pantry, kitchen gadgets etc. I also realized that since we will be in the apartment thru early fall, it might be a good idea to take some cold weather clothes to Denver and not put everything in storage because I will probably need them before we move into the new house.

On Thursday, we had a genuine "Welcome to Colorado" storm hit.  It was a beautiful day, not too hot or humid, and by 4-ish there were clouds building up over the mountains.  About 5 a huge black cloud came overhead and it started hailing as hard as I have ever seen.  

It lasted about 5 minutes and this is how it looked after it stopped.

It was soft hail and didn't do any damage to the cars or to windshields but it stripped lots of leaves off of the trees.  There were two tornados reported touching down just east of Parker but there was nothing like that here. Not even high winds- just lots of hail in a short period of time. 

Someone took this picture and posted it on Twitter.  I thought it was clever to make a snowman out of hail!

Mark's company had a company sponsored evening at Coors Field on Friday night.  I had to go pick up the tickets to the game at the offices downtown so Friday morning I took the train to get them.  While I was coming home  the train jerked forward and the conductor slammed on the brakes.  At first I thought there was a car that had tried to beat the train but as it turned out- it was these two characters!

What's really crazy about this is that these two deer were about a half mile from downtown! 

We got to watch The Rockies play The Dodgers. It was held in the company Suite and they had a yummy buffet of typical ballpark food: bratwurst, hot dogs, pizza, peanuts, popcorn, ice cream, etc.  It was a beautiful night- almost cold as far as Mark and I were concerned and we both ended up wearing lightweight jackets on the way home.  Oh Lordy...It's gonna be an adjustment for these Texans to remember to bring jackets to outdoor events in the summer.

We went out to the house today and it is coming along but there's nothing to take pictures of per se.  They have almost finished getting the insulation put in and they are working on the plumbing and electrical systems. The basement was also framed out this past week. The slate tiles for the roof were delivered while we were there so I suppose they will be putting those up sometime this week.  

Mark and I are going to downtown Centennial later this afternoon for their Summer Kickoff.  There is a street fair, entertainment and a "Concert in the Park". Should be a fun evening.